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Sunday, November 30, 2008

I guess I'm doing these posts in the wrong order, but at least it's all here now.

Yesterday morning and afternoon I quilted 2 charity quilts for Gracie. I used Celtic Scroll pantograph by Keryn Emmerson, Camel PermaCore thread and Hobbs 80/20 batting for both of them. This is another pantogrph that I purchased at the Chicago Quilt Expo and another one that I really like.

Today I made 4 more of those cute little baskets using the tutorial on Pink Penguin's blog. These will be filled and given as door prizes at Common Thread's Christmas Party.

I also made 2 more cat beds because my scrap/string basket was overflowing. Now, if I was smart, I would make another one right away and use it to line the wastecan that I currently use for collecting this stuff. Then, I would only need to stitch the top closed. If I make it back tomy sewing room tonight I will do that.

Yesterday I tried out a new technique on Mabel. I wanted to make a quilt for my grandson Matt for Christmas, and have been collecting basketball prints for a while. I bought 2 yards of sports themed fleece at Joanns ($2.99/yd) and loaded it, pinning the cut edges. I placed a 6" strip of basketball novelty cotton on the fleece, right side up. Then I placed a 3" strip of flannel on top of it and activated my horizontal channel lock and stitched from one side to the other. I smoothed out the flannel and placed another 6" basketball fabric strip....right side down and repeated the stitching.

The strips didn't go to the edges of the fleece so that I could sew a vertical border when finished. I guess I could have done that a little at a time as I went, but I didn't think of it until right this minute. Instead, I took it to my Janome and stitched the side borders on.

I squared it up and stitched the binding onto the back and will bring it to the front and maybe hand stitch, or maybe by machine. I stitched it to the back because I don't care to handstitch on fleece.

Friday, November 28, 2008

Dan and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at Elaine and Jerry's home in Columbus, Ohio, along with Jeff and Dané, my grandson Matt, and my ex-husband Jack. The first order of business was the wedding quilt. They were pleased with it, I think and I was certainly proud.

The actual dinner was yummy. Elaine and Dané are wonderful cooks and we were all stuffed when we got up from the table and the pumpkin-walnut pie had to wait for several hours before we had room to enjoy it with some coffee.

Here's Jeff, Dané, and her parents

Jeff, Dané, and Jeff's Dad, Jack

I gave Elaine the Christmas Star table runner that I finished the binding on in the car on the way to their house. It looked just perfect on their table.

Saying goodbye is always hard for me, so we made a rather speedy exit before I really let the tears fall.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

We have a Mexican restaurant here called Pepe's and it is Julie's favorite. Since they moved to Clayton, every time she is in town, she goes to Pepe's. Which isn't a bad thing....they have great chips and salsa and lots of other tasty items also.

There was a special lunch on Monday celebrating Debbie's granddaughters visiting for the holidays. Grandma Davis, Aunt Betty, Julie, Andrew, Debbie, Marla, Shelly, Kimberly, Samantha and myself all enjoyed a yummy lunch.

Can you stand one more picture of those Oreo Turkeys? Well, actually a few more pictures, but they are all in a collage....

Well, we're not exactly goping to Grandma's, but we are going on a road trip tomorrow.

Bright and early we will be heading to Columbus, Ohio to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with our new daughter-in-law's parents. I am so excited to see the newlyweds that I just about can't stand it. Shhh, don't tell them, but I put the last stitches in the binding of their wedding quilt a few hours ago and it is packed up and ready for the trip.

I finished quilting the Christmas Star table runner and have the binding sewn on the first side and ready for the hand stitching, so that I have something to do during the drive. I used a new pantograph called Leaf Litter and I think I like it. It took a bit longer than I expected, but not too long.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

On Sunday I loaded a quilt that Alice made for her 3 year old grandson. It's queen size and has lots of vehicles on it. A Very Cute Quilt!! Popcorn pantograph, Lava, blue(can't remember the name) and a poly batting.

Last night I loaded Joann's t-shirt quilt that she made for her daughter. It went very quickly with just a simple meandering.

It was still pretty early, so I loaded my quilterscache test pattern, Christmas star table runner and did a couple passes on a new panto, Leaf LitterThis is one of my new pantos from the Chicago Expo a couple weeks ago.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

First Things First........I forgot my camera, so the photo is from my phone.

What a great time we had this afternoon/evening. We decorated a cake for Julie's birthday and then went to Red Robin for dinner. Then back home to make these cute turkey treats that I found on the Hungry Housewife's blog. I think I will have my granddaughters over tomorrow to make some, too.

I finished the quilting on the 4PSP last night and spent a couple hours knotting and burying threads.

That part is still not finished, but I moved on to the next project. I loaded a special quilt last night and started the quilting on it. I don't have permission to show it, but a peek of it is on the sidebar >>>

This afternoon I will be driving to Clayton to watch Matt and Andrew while Julie and Jim celebrate Julie's upcoming birthday with a night out. We plan to visit Red Robin for dinner and make some cute turkey treats. I must remember to take my camera!

Friday, November 21, 2008

For a sinfully rich cake, you could try making peanut butter icing to top a devils food cake. The National Group provides a birthday cake for our employees each month. If there are 2 or more with a birthday in any given month, one of them gets to pick the flavor/kind of cake. November has only one birthday and that's Bryan's and this happens to be his favorite. Although I don't really bake cakes anymore, there isn't a bakery in town that does this, so I have made this cake for his birthday for several years. I think it's a bit too rich by itself, so I always provide some ice cream to accompany it.(notice the different colors of the icing....that would be from the heat of my hand on the decorating bag, or I should say ziplock bag, which is what I used because I threw out all my vinyl decorating bags a long time ago. At 9:30 last night I wasn't about to go to the store to buy some, so I used practically a whole box of ziplock bags instead. They don't hold that stiff icing very well!

Some who hadn't tried it in previous years had some today and liked it, so that means that I may be making it more than once a year. Here is Bryan and his cake.

In between quilting the 4PSP, I made some of these blocks to send to Christina for her Christmas tree Block Lotto. I made a total of 11 of them and sent 5 for the lotto. Just in case I don't win a set of 25 blocks, I can still make a little something with my six blocks.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Something a little different for me last night.....I started with a beadboard border,

then a tropical leaf border which I traced the leaves on and then connected them. The light green border, I don't know the name of that pattern.....I have a small stencil of it, but I did this freehand.

A 4-petal flower in each block and a leaf design in the sashing.

I wonder if I need to add something in the little 1/2 inch border around the blocks???

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Last night I used one of the pantographs I purchased on Friday, Lime Tree, which is an 11" Wide Design by Keryn Emmerson. Just PermaCore white thread and Hobbs 80/20 batting. I will be taking it to guild tonight and hope she likes it! There is a close-up over on the side bar.

I thought the color of the backing on Carol's quilt called for something so aptly named.

Monday, November 17, 2008

I have completed the top of this queen size 4PSP quilt. I had to piece some of the final borders, which I didn't want to do. I thought I had saved a long enough piece, but it wasn't quite wide enough to cut for the two side borders, so I pieced one of them. Once quilted, I don't think it will be very visible. I hope to get this loaded and start the quilting today. I'm having a hard time deciding what to use for the backing. I have wide WOW that I could use and that may be what I end up with so that I don't have to buy anything more.

What a wonderful day! Good friends, lots of laughs, a lost pillow, and a quilt with amost all the binding hand sewn on.

The quilts were spectacular and the vendors had several things that made their way home with me....some pantographs, lots of thread, a game quilt pattern for Andrew, a pattern for a military wall hanging, a book with purse/bag patterns, a template for making cable borders and one for tumbler blocks, and some South African Shweshw (indigo)fat quarters and some novelty fat quarters.

Here's my haul for the day. At least I didn't have to store mine in the back underside compartments of the bus.

We played Handbag Scavenger Hunt and I had a list of about 100 different items. The first person to pull an item out of their bag and show it won a fat quarter. We had 12 fat quarters donated by Rossville Quilts, a few from Cheryl's Quilts and the rest were purchased.Everyone was working really hard at the games on the bus:

I didn't get pictures of the big winners, who won a fabric basket made by me, and filled with candy. The person with the most items from the list won a basket and the person who had the most correct answers to these puzzle games won a basket. The games are free to download from the HP site and are just great for a bus trip or guild games. Jan (our guild president) won the booby prize basket (no candy in that one) for having the fewest items.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Tommorrow morning I will board the bus along with 25 guild members to attend the Greater Chicago Quilt Exposition in Shamburg, IL. My friend Shelly is the coordinator of the bus trips and has always done a great job. I have been busy planning a couple fun activities for the bus trip and here is a sneak peek of what I've been working on.

I have a quilt ready for the hand stitching on the binding to keep me busy also.

My shopping list includes some thread for Mabel and maybe some rulers and pantographs if there are any to be had. I also have placed an order with Accomplish Quilting and just have to pick it up from their booth.

I'm retired from my Graphic Design job at The National Group and a full-time long-arm quilter. I'm married and have 2 sons and a daughter, 1 stepson, 3 grandsons, 4 granddaughters, 4 step-granddaughters and a step-grandson.